29 July 2010

Tom Bailey of the Thompson Twins is now as far removed from the UK pop world as possible. Having resided in New Zealand for a number of years he followed their love of reggae, producing under the International Observer guise since 2001. "Felt" Words: Martin Woodsis his second album released on Dubmission records after his 2007 release "Heard". Tom fuses the traditional dubplate style with a modern twist, often plucking the electric guitar beautifully as well employing the obligatory bass, reverb, horns, piano and spacey sound effects.

Looking down the track list my eyes were immediately drawn to the cover of the 60's classic "House of the Rising Sun" by the Animals. It's not the first time it's been covered in a reggae style. To my knowledge, Gregory Isaac's 1992 release on Ras Records (which, for fans of vocal reggae, is a great version worth investigating) was the first. Tom's down-tempo dub version doesn't disappoint and the single release has re-mixes from deep house maestro Danny Howells and New Zealand's masters of dubby futuristic electronica, Pitch Black.

Listening through the album it's not your typical dub affair, where unless it's played on a loud system, a lot of tracks can sound samey. "Death of Karmov" is a journey of many styles, starting off spacey and drifting into an Eastern vibe with lovely vocal harmonies before the bass drops and an 80's futurist style synth takes over, and then the vocal harmonies return, filtered through effects and dropping strings. Rosemad teases the listener, flipping between the traditional reggae piano and an ambient synthetic piano which twists the effects to the limit, while Neelkanth is a very mellow number with some wonderful acoustic elements that sound almost harp-like over the spacey bells and reverb-laden drum rolls.

Overall I recommend this album to anyone who likes electro-acoustic music and traditional Dubmission Records (2009)
http://www.myspace.com/internationalobserver
http://www.myspace.com/dubmissionrecordsdub, although it's geared more for the chill-out session than the low synthetic bass of dubstep. This album is available on digital release from 1st Sept and on CD from the 14^th September in the US and worldwide on October the 5^th.